belgianwaffle

Belgium

Grumpy


Posted in: Belgium

On Sunday, my loving husband minded the sick children leaving me to attend mass alone, something I haven’t done in years.  This gave me the leisure and the high moral ground to criticise others.  Usually I am too busy being mortified by my progeny.

I went to Notre Dame au Sablon where the nice beggar kindly asked after the children and sent the ill mites his regards.  The church is having work done on most of the nave and is cut off at the transept by enormous, ugly chipboard panels.  It makes the church tiny with one entrance rather than relatively large with two.  As I sat there near the door a constant stream of people came in to look around ignoring the large sign in four languages asking them not to do so during mass.

They looked around, they took photos, a family ensconced themselves in the row behind me and looked at their map.  An elderly man sitting beside them put out his hand to shake hands for the sign of peace and they were baffled but gamely shook hands with all and sundry. 

Would it kill them all to wait until mass was over?

Hurrah!


Posted in: Belgium, Family, Work

Yesterday evening at 6.00, I had to take the train to England. At 3.00 with two sick children (welcome to the Leper House) who were responding well to paracetemol and one hyper girl who hadn’t been out in days, we decided that we needed to get out, but where? 

I found this very nifty website which lists all the museums in Brussels by various search criteria including by theme and by area. On Rue Paul Spaak no 7, is the Fondation Raymond Leblanc. It is five minutes from the station and it is a comic museum. Well worth a visit we felt.

As we circled around the exceptionally dodgy area (you know, adjacent train and bus station, drunks, louts, nervous visitors scurrying in the opposite direction) looking for parking we would have been sure that we were in the wrong place had it not been for a large neon Tintin and Snowy on the roof of one of the buildings.

We parked the car and navigated the children round the various hazards and made our way to no. 7. All around were closed, barred shops, internet and cheap telephone shops, money transfer places and suddenly there was a very swish comic shop but it looked closed. Beside it was an open door to what looked like a smart residential building in a very spartan style, maybe 1940s. Closer inspection revealed that this was the Fondation building. We went in, it was deserted. We pushed the button for the lift. It didn’t come. We stood there alone, baffled. I went back and checked the front door. There was a small postcard pinned up. It advised climbing by foot to the second floor. We all clumped up the spiral staircase of the beautiful empty building.

On the second floor, a pug dog emerged to greet us. The Princess fell upon him, the boys nervously asked to be lifted up. A chic young woman emerged and swooped up the dog and smiled graciously upon us. Her equally chic colleague positioned herself behind the blond wood desk, reassured us that we were in the right place, lamented the quality of the quartier and sold us two adult entry tickets (children free) for the princely sum of 6 euros. Did we know the history of the place, we did not. This building is, I think, still a working publishing house, it was there that the Tintin magazine was made for many years and it was also the home of the Belvision studio which made animated films. 

The museum consists of various comic strips, information about the publishing house and various other bits and pieces that I, alas, didn’t get a lot of time to examine because, the piece de resistance, or at least as far as my family was concerned, was a miniature working cinema with plush red seats which we had to ourselves. It was showing Asterix and Cleopatra which I think was originally made there in that very building. The seats had names on the back (Herge,) and I think they must have been original because the plush velvet was faded in places. We were all entranced. Mr. Waffle and I wandered about the exhibits outside a little bit but mostly we stayed and watched.

At about 4.45, I suggested that I would go and get my luggage from the car and come back and give him the key (you will recall that I have lost my car key and refuse to fork out for a new one as I know it is somewhere in the house) before going to the station. I went and got my luggage and came back. I stayed until about 5.15 and decided that I’d better trot along to the train. I left them all entranced with the film and indifferent to my departure (a delightful contrast to the howlfest that ensued last time I went away overnight).

Off to queue for the train, passport, baggage control, then my mobile started ringing. It was Mr. Waffle, had I taken the car key with me? Yes, I had. Back through the various layers out on to the street back to the building, up the spiral staircase, hand over key, renewed goodbyes to puzzled children, back down the staircase etc. etc. And I still had loads of time to get the train because despite two sets of passport checks and x-ray machines, it’s still a lot faster than the airport and also because this place is exactly five minutes walk from the Eurostar terminus. I know because I have recently done it three times.

If you have children, or even, if you don’t, may I enthusiastically recommend this place to you, if you find yourself in Brussels by Eurostar (or, I suppose, even if you don’t though it is supremely handy for the Eurostar). I found the whole experience to be quintessentially Belgian from the deserted beautiful building, to the pug dog and the high seriousness of the comic strip. It’s fabulous and, for my money, better value than the much more famous comic strip museum. True the latter is housed in a spectacular building but the art is more difficult for children to appreciate, since they have to muscle their way through a crowd of spectators to see it and, as far as I know, it certainly doesn’t boast a private family cinema. 6 euros well spent.

How different, how very different from the home life of our own dear Queen


Posted in: Belgium, Ireland, Princess

I was born in Cork and grew up there. I went to school with Cork children. My mother was considered mildly exotic because she came from Limerick (adjoining county about 40 miles away). We had a girl in our class in primary school whose mother came from Dubin and this was considered so exotic that there was an article about her mother in the Evening Echo. As I remember it, the headline was something like “Dublin Woman moves to Cork”; it’s not as though her mother was famous or had done anything very thrilling once she got to Cork. I suppose I’m saying that Cork in the 70s and 80s was a pretty homogenous place.

Obviously, going to school in Belgium, the Princess was never going to be in a class full of her compatriots but what amazes me is the range of nationalities in her class alone: Poles, Belgians, Pakistanis, North Africans, South Americans and one Irish girl. This morning she explained to me that she had a cooked lunch in school yesterday (itself a matter calling for some investigation as she had left the house with a sandwich, but we will leave that to one side) but not the same as the “musulmans” because they don’t eat meat. I explained to her that the English word was Muslims and they do eat meat but it has to be prepared in a particular way. It is amazing to me that she knows more about other religions and other cultures at four than I did at fourteen. I can’t help feeling that there is quite a lot to be said for globalisation all the same.

Spring is in the Air (a dull summary of our weekend activities for the benefit of loving relatives who have already heard it on the phone)


Posted in: Belgium, Family

The weather was beautiful this weekend.  On Saturday we went to the park; the Princess was on her bike (which is excellent and has really extended our range of destinations on foot) and the boys in the buggy.  Michael objected loudly to this and for the length of our street sobbed and said “bicycle, bicycle”.  Daniel tired of this and whacked Michael on the head, a move which I outwardly condemned while, inwardly, having every sympathy with him.  One of the training wheels loosened on the royal bike and Mr. Waffle was sent sprinting home to get the spanner while the children and I continued carefully.  No sooner had the offending nut been tightened than the chain came off.  Please bear in mind that as all the repair work was continuing Michael was howling determinedly.  By the time we arrived in the park, fine weather or no, we were all a little tense.  Everyone had a lovely time in the park, though, and they were very good when we went to our friends’ house for cake (the Princess even used cutlery) and on the trek home.

On Sunday, we went to Mass where the children were all miraculously well behaved.  Te Princess went to a Sunday school type class – hooray – and emerged commenting that she had no idea that Jesus wanted her to be a good girl and why hadn’t we told her; I feel that this is a very promising development.   Afterwards, we went for a walk around the Etangs d’Ixelles picking up various things in the market.  It felt like being on holidays (a feature of my childhood holidays in France being Mass on a Sunday and market afterwards) and I wondered why we don’t do this kind of thing more often.  Possibly because it is not always wonderfully fine and sunny on Sunday mornings in Brussels.

That afternoon we went to a showing of “The Little Mole” which the children loved.  It was the boys’ first trip to the cinema and they were enchanted.  A bit like an old silent film, the showing was accompanied by two musicians with a range of instruments (explained and identified to the audience) which the kids were allowed to inspect afterwards.  It was described on the poster as 6 short films by Zdeněk Miler which, as Mr. Waffle pointed out, made it sound a lot more intellectual than it actually was.  I did spend some of my time wondering whether it was communist propoganda. The little Mole stole a watermelon from a pile that a man was selling to children; then the Mole cut it up and gave it away to his friends.  The watermelon seller does not come up smelling of roses.  In another of the films, with the help of all the animals of the jungle (except for the mean lion), the Mole digs a well.  Perhaps all cartoons for small children emphasise the value of co-operation and it is only later that we urge them to compete and assure them that they will stand or fall on their own efforts alone.

All in all, it was the first weekend in some time where that hasn’t left me desperate to get into work on Monday morning. Could we be turning a corner?

Travel Agents, first against the wall when the revolution 3.0 comes


Posted in: Belgium

Mr. Waffle and I went to a travel agent for the first time in many years recently. We wanted to check availability of ski holidays for this year and our internet research was proving a little difficult.

The woman tittered (oh yes she did) when she heard that we were thinking about booking something for this year. The first week we suggested was all booked up. “It’s too late, forget it”, she said gloomily [don’t they get a commission, for God’s sake?]. We persisted. She sighed audibly. “How about the week of March 22?” I said. She raised what was left of her eyebrows and tapped her long manicured fingers on the desk, “Ah March 22, you might get something it’s so late, but there will be no snow”.

“Could you try it all the same?”

“Oh but it’s EASTER” she said contemptuously having peered at her calendar, “there will be nothing”.
Maybe some snow after all then. There was one one star apartment left which, she said, she would very much advise against taking, particularly with a family.

We left in a huff. She smiled merrily. Another victory for Belgian customer service.  If we can’t find anything, the Princess will murder us.  She and I have been looking at children skiing on youtube and she fancies the notion of herself whizzing down the slopes.

The Weekend of the Rat


Posted in: Belgium, Family

Thank you all for your kind comments on my children’s singing. Just as well you did because my mother has still not inspected the winsome mites on Youtube. True, she is a little dubious about the computer and all its works. True, also, she had them sing live to her on the telephone but that is not the same thing at all. Her defence is that she has had a busy weekend, what with the rugby and everything. This is, clearly, no defence at all; she should have struck to berating the computer which, in my parents’ house, is known as the monster in the study. She has, however, started the book I gave her for her birthday. My sister-in-law recommended it to me and lent me her copy; a decision, I suspect, she now regrets as I still have it in my grubby little mitts. Lest there be any confusion, I hasten to clarify that my mother got a span new copy. A copy she has been reading with interest. It is set in the 1930s and is a series of funny tales (I think “gently humourous” is the kind of expression the blurb writers would go for) about the fictional diarist’s life in the English countryside with her husband and two daughters. “It really,” said my mother “gives you a feel for a period, it reminds me of Di Lampedusa“. As I told her, I suspect that this is the first time this comparison has been made.

This morning the joys of communal living were manifest from 6.00. Normally we wake our building when the children start screaming at 7.30. However, the students on the top floor were going away and spent their time from 6.00 huffing and puffing up and down with ski gear. It appeared that the best way to get poles down was to fling them into the stairwell and let them bounce to the ground floor while laughing manically the while. Maybe it just sounded that way.

We took ourselves to a museum to let the boys run around and work up an appetite for a nap. Is there anything more appealing than a large museum with few visitors, endless corridors and enormous rooms filled with odd items? Usually this museum is empty but today, we coincided with a series of activities to celebrate the Year of the Rat and a distressing number of people were milling about in the foyer. Happily, they all appeared to want to sign up for calligraphy demonstrations and we were allowed to inspect the exhibition of miniature Chinese houses in peace. We also admired Cinderella’s carriage in splendid isolation. All in all, it was a very satisfactory morning, the only crisis was caused by one of the bottles we had brought for the boys leaking all over the bag it was in and my husband’s jumper. Daniel pointed to the wet floor and said sagely “Michael spill actimel“. (Actimel is the work of Satan, the kids all love it because of its knacky little bottle and then they can’t get their mouths round it and spill it down their fronts. Every time I give them a bottle, the two lads say “very careful”. I digress.) On leaving, the foyer was still heaving and, in a very Belgian way, the lady in the cloakroom was refusing coats (see proof they’ve never had this many people before). “It’s full, I’ve already said it’s full, go away, do you expect me to hang your coats on the wall?” she said angrily to a crowd of innocent punters who, having purchased their tickets, were not going to be let into the museum until they had divested themselves of their coats, something Madame in the cloakroom was steadfastly refusing to allow them to do. All that was missing to make it a classic Belgian scene was for someone to start complaining about the linguistic regime.

Tomorrow is the start of mid-term. Herself has been signed up for a week long course of sport to which she is looking forward with all the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner. It’s a bit difficult to get to and the hours are different from school, leading to some logistical difficulties. When the boys were in the bath this evening I explained at tremendous length to my husband that, if I had to leave work early to collect herself I would prefer it to be Thursday because I have a lot on tomorrow and then I’ll have to leave a bit early on Tuesday, because it’s pancake Tuesday and we’ll be making pancakes and then I’ll be a bit frantic but, if on the other hand, I collect her on Thursday, I can get a good run on things on Monday, leave calmly on Tuesday and, by Thursday, all should be well for me to knock off a little early and collect herself, but, on the other hand, if I did have to collect her tomorrow, then he should let me know because I would take the car to work. He said, “what, sorry, I wasn’t listening, do you want to get her tomorrow or Thursday?” “Thursday”, I said, a shade coldly.

In our continuing efforts to illustrate to our sons that they both have a mother and a father and that they have not each been assigned to a particular parent, I took Daniel rather than Michael out of the bath again. My impudence was greeted with an outburst of angry weeping from Michael. I explained firmly that I am Daniel’s Mama too. “NO! Daddy, Daniel’s Mama!” he said. I think we have a mountain to climb here.

And finally, did you see that Carla and Sarko got married over the weekend? Maybe they should have waited until the Year of the Rat started. Don’t be like that, it’s supposed to be auspicious for marriages.

Buy Lasix (Furosemide) Online without Prescription - from only $0.35! Buy Priligy online. Order Dapoxetine without prescription | Heals Assistants Buy Prednisolone (Omnacortil) Online without Prescription - from only $5.95! Buy Antabuse (Disulfiram) Online without Prescription - from only $0.55!